![]() Vallance has said that one of the song's influences was Running on Empty by Jackson Browne, and particularly the line "In '69 I was 21". It is of course possible that he played guitar until his fingers bled before he reached double figures, but did he really have a girlfriend who told him it would last forever, and a band that fell apart because one of its members got hitched, all before he was out of the fourth grade? Maybe Prince could pull this off, but clean-cut Canadian Bryan? Even hearing the track for the first time as a 15-year-old, the date seemed all wrong, as if it didn't really belong and had been tacked on as an afterthought, as a way to tap into some hippie, free-love vibe that in truth Adams hadn't experienced any more than I had.Īdams – and I'm hardly the first to point this out – was nine years old in the summer of '69. It is the "'69" that has always struck me as the song's false note. But at some point "Summer of '69" entered the lyrical mix, and became dominant.īryan Adams performs at the Newcastle Entertainment Centre. It shouts out unashamedly that these are the best days of your life, and has no time for the counterclaim that memory is a liar.Īdams and longtime writing partner Jim Vallance even titled an early version of the song "Best Days of My Life". The song is what it is – a heavily nostalgic, sepia-toned, radio-friendly rocker about being young and all the usual stuff (music, friends, girls). Adams may choose not to play the song, of course, but if he does it will be a brave move, almost punk – and punk isn't a word usually thrown around when talking about Adams.īut I'm not here to bash Adams or even the song particularly. It is his best-known song, and a personal favourite of AFL boss Gillon McLachlan (the man arranging the hefty transfer into Adams' bank account). Whatever the case, 30 years on, Bryan Adams will almost certainly play Summer of '69 when he gets up at the MCG on grand final day. ![]() ![]() Surely he can't be feeling that nostalgic for a youth he appears to still inhabit? And why the longing for a year in which none of the song's events could have happened? He looks so young, as if he's in a school battle of the bands comp and is just glad to be free of zits for the big day. direct experienceġ8:47 - Favorite songs from the first three albumsĢ0:57 - Movie videos / achieving a high profileĢ6:15 - Upcoming tours (with Hall & Oates, Journey) / possibility of burning outĢ8:02 - Concern for predictability with one's soundģ0:38 - Possibility of flopping / other jobsģ1:59 - Forced into singing / getting comfortable with a mic / meaning what you singĠ7:24 - Conducting the band / finally having a great band / Mickey Curryġ0:07 - Never gets stage fright / just having to rock a town / opening vs.Even in the summer of '85, the year the song was released, it didn't make much sense that Bryan Adams was singing about the summer of '69. At the same time, his sincere and unapologetic drive to rock his fans is extremely endearing.Ġ1:19 - Recording in Vancouver, Montreal, and New YorkĠ2:50 - Working with Bob Clearmountain / Bryan's favorite work from BobĠ6:21 - Picking up Mickey Curry from Hall & OatesĠ8:30 - Working with Lou Gramm from Foreignerġ1:43 - Writing with Jim Vallance / overall teamworkġ5:27 - Measuring the value of a song through live musicġ5:53 - Writing for other artists: Loverboy, Prism, Pat Benatarġ7:56 - Writing from fantasy vs. Bryan is confident and seemingly proud of his work, including some of the clichéd writing that would eventually be fodder for some of his harsher criticisms. Throughout the interview, there is a thematic element of what it is like to be on the brink of international fame at such a young age. There is also a wealth of material that provides insight into his songwriting process. ![]() In Part 1, he also discusses in depth what it was like to work with Bob Clearmountain, the new band, making videos, and the possibility of the album flopping. The making of Cuts Like a Knife is the centerpiece here, with Part 2 of the interview containing a track-by-track dialogue of every song on the new album. After recording Cuts Like a Knife with Bob Clearmountain, his potential for being "the next big thing" resulted in this lengthy interview with Dean Hill, taped in Vancouver before Bryan spent the rest of the year on tour. By the time he was 23 in 1983, Bryan Adams had written songs that had been recorded by BTO, Prism, Ian Lloyd, Loverboy, and Kiss he had also toured in support of two solo albums, opening for the likes of the Kinks and Foreigner.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |